PLAN No. 342. RAN A PADDLE-WHEEL
Two boys at a popular eastern resort made a living by operating a paddle-wheel—one of the simplest yet most profitable enterprises one could find.
The wheel was a small wooden affair, something like the wheel of an old-style baby carriage, and in the front side of the rim were driven twelve wire nails, an equal distance apart, which stuck out about an inch and a half, and the spaces between the nails were numbered from one to twelve, with about 1-inch figures (clipped from a calendar, pasted on cardboard and tacked on the wheel). The hub of the wheel was set on a round peg fastened in a wooden pole about two inches thick and about seven feet high; the bottom of the pole being propped in a foot-stand like those that are used to hold up Christmas trees, and the rim of the wheel was brought up to within about two inches of the top of the pole. To the top of the pole was fastened an extension finger that came out about two inches beyond the front of the wheel, and to this finger was fastened a strip of thick leather about three and a half inches long. This strip of leather was set so as to drop into the space between two of the nails, so that when the wheel was spun around the leather was struck by each nail every time the wheel went round.
Twelve paddles were used in connection with the wheel. These paddles were merely flat pieces of wood in the shape of a broom with a small handle, or, to be more exact, shaped like the back of a hair brush and of about the same size. The paddles were numbered from one to twelve, to correspond with the numbers on the wheel.
Chewing gum was sold at 5 cents a package, and a half pound of chocolates was given away each time the wheel was twirled, each purchaser of the gum being given a paddle to hold, with a number, and when twelve sales were made, the wheel was spun around. Whoever held the paddle with the number corresponding to that of the space between the nails designated by the leather finger, when the wheel stopped, got the chocolates.
Sales were many and the profits large—the cost of the gum and candy being 27 cents, while the receipts from every turn of the wheel were 60 cents, a profit of 33 cents. And that wheel turned several hundred times a day.